You started RiffTrax in 2006. How long did it – let me just ask this very
bluntly. Is it a living?

It is, yeah.

And how long did it take to become self-sustaining?

It’s interesting that you ask that, because it’s a topic that…I want to be
careful about this. I think there’s a point where people think “If someone
else is making money, they’re doing something wrong or they’re exploiting me”
and we are not to that point, believe me. It is a living. But I also try to
insulate myself from the financial part of it, and that’s why I teamed with a
going company to create it.

So, you don’t want to be deciding what jokes to make based on popularity or
something like that.

Yeah, to be poring over a financial statement is not what I do, so that is why
teaming up with a company that was already in existence made sense to me.

How much has the ability to riff on current movies, “A-List” movies for lack
of a better term, made a difference to you? One of the things that excited me
about RiffTrax was that I could hear people make fun of a movie I loved,
rather than a Roger Corman B movie.

That was part of it. I had always thought that this process of riffing on
stuff will make sense with movies that are good as well, because we certainly
had plenty of people at Mystery Science that thought some of the movies we did
were good and instinctively went “Oh, how could you do that to that movie?”
and it’s like “Well, y’know, the movie exists without us on there. We didn’t
go paint a moustache on the Mona Lisa. You can watch the movie without our
commentary.” And so it’s kind of a metacommentary that can add to and make the
movie funny, but it’s also – when the movie deserves some ribbing it gets it,
but otherwise it’s just kind of floating on top of the experience, if that
makes any sense.

Yeah, it does. Actually, One of the things I like about the audio-only
experience is that it feels much more like people in the room with you rather
than watching a performance. Obviously, it is still a performance, i’m sure
you rehearse a lot, but it feels like less of a performance to the audience.

We work really really hard on the script, and then the moment where we perform
it is just like it sounds, where we’re having a lot of fun, and it is a bunch
of guys and now we can relax because we’ve done all this work in advance and
perform this thing that we now really all agree upon that we like. Hopefully,
that feeling comes across that we’re not laboring in the recording studio.
It’s fun, at that point. We’ve done all the work and labor up front.

How did you end up working with Weird Al? Did you find him or did he find
you?

We found him, actually. He was one of the people that I’ve always wanted to
work with. I’ve admired his work ethic. He seems to have a philosophy – and
he sort of confirmed it for me – that he just wants to make people laugh, he
wants to make them happy, and he wants to make as many people laugh as
possible. And I share that. So I was really happy to get him on board. And
then to find out that he was just an amazing performer and really enthusiastic
in the studio was fantastic.

Do your relatives watch RiffTrax? Have any of them had trouble getting it to
work?

I have a lot of nieces and nephews of the age that would be interested, and
they had been spontaneously listening to it and knew more about it than I had
ever imagined. I’ve always been one of those people that loathed working in
front of my family. In fact, I hated it whenever any of my family members came
to see any of my shows. “I don’t stand over you at work, please don’t think
you have to come see me.” But several of them have started to get on the
RiffTrax bandwagon. None of them have had any trouble getting it to work.

If there is any fly in the ointment of RiffTrax, it’s that there is this
process of synchronization. How much do you think that impacts – not sales,
so much, but the experience?

I think – you can only know anecdotally, but it’s definitely a factor. Before
we even started the business we wanted to make sure there were a number of
people who understood the concept and were comfortable doing it. But yeah, you
meet plenty of people who just immediately shut off to the process and that’s
a problem, and we’re working all the time to get it working for those people.
And it does no good to explain that it’s not difficult. There’s enough people
(obviously, along age lines and along tech savvy) who are able to do it
without any problem or explanation. So, it’s a problem and we’re working on
solutions, yet at the same time the number of people who have no problem with
it is growing all the time.

There’s a phrase that people bandy about called The Long Tail. One way to
look at that idea is that you have a large back library of things, and you may
only sell a few of each one, but that the depth of the library leads to many
sales, which adds up. Have you seen that in effect for you?

Yeah, it is helpful. And one of the things that almost directly correlates to
sales is availability of the movie, that’s a component of it. But having a
bigger library and appealing to tastes that are just slightly outside of the
mainstream is a goal of ours. And having a varied library is important so that
when a big title is released, people will come to check it out, but then say
“Oh yeah, here’s this movie that nobody else knows about.” It may not sell
many on its own, but it will cause an up-tick over time. Having the library
definitely does help, and makes it a a richer experience. Some people don’t
want to see Star Wars at all.

You did a commentary on someone else’s DVD – I believe it was Night of the
Living Dead. Do you anticipate that happening again, or does it take a
particularly open-minded director to allow someone to make fun of his movie?

You know, it’s funny. I pitched a network show called “What The Hell Were You
Thinking?” where you bring in someone who has had a long and successful career
and you look at their less-successful things and you get them to open up about
why they failed, and what they were thinking, and what were the pressures, and
I just got all these responses that there would never be anybody who would do
that, and I just don’t believe that for a second. And I think they were just
saying that because they were afraid of talking to these people. I think it
would be a fascinating show. So, my point being, I think there’s plenty of
people who would like that, and would enjoy commentary where you actually talk
frankly about critical and financial failures in the industry, in a fun way,
and in a funny way, without trying to tear the person down. So I think it’s
quite possible, and I’d love to do it.

I have one question that I’m sure everyone asks you. Out of all the riffs
you’ve done, do you have a favorite?

They all have their fun side. I’m partial to the movies of the ‘80s, the Over
the Tops, the Roadhouses and yet I really got a lot of joy at grinding away
at movies, to solve the movies that are troublesome. To get through a section
where there’s nothing and turn it into something. So that said, I like the
more action-oriented movies. Of those movies that I’ve done with with Kevin
and Bill, the big blockbusters yield the most fun for people. So that’s my
wormy answer. Personally, I love to do the ‘80s movies, but on a satisfaction
level I love “solving” the action movies.